avast! ye evildoers ~ ~ pclef.net

GOD BLESS AMERICA

... can I have one? can I? can I? ...

it's been a long time since I pined for the GI Joe with the kung fu grip...

the only thing missing is the small, bloodied quail carcass...and/or harry whittington covered in buckshot...one might assume that the great american catchphrase applies: accessories not included...

what a wonderful way for the free-market capitalist system to come right 'round and kick the shadowlord veep vader right in the ass...

...

sidebar: how come pavement's "silent kid" has been on a sort of infinite loop in my cranial audio headspace since I put it on my iPod a few weeks ago? because it's very, very similar to buddy holly's "everyday"... at least the main hook is...

compare. contrast.

...

SING! SING! SING!

...mr. personality...

I've been hearing and reading about Derek Trucks for years now. naturally, I know the pedigree--nephew to Butch Trucks of the original allman bros and husband to Susan Tedeschi, a singer whom I admire (also a pretty good guitarist)...Derek also has a "side gig" (slide gig?) in the allman bros touring band--he makes up half of the tandem that was created after the ouster of dickie betts, where (I can only assume) he lays down the circa duane slide parts, while warren haynes cops the dickie-isms. and then there is the "jam band" scene, whereby he's done tons of gigs with jimmy herring, another humbucker into super reverb deadshredder, whom I've commented on previously in this space.

whenever I "discover" a musician in this sense--after a long period of knowing only the reputation--it is worthwhile to at least try to cast aside the preconceptions...and with a last name of trucks, and an SG's neck pickup patched into a super on '10' there were preconcepts aplenty. but I've always held one thing in common with trucks, herring and co.--a fondness for revisiting 50s/60s jazz classics. on the album I've been perusing to date..."derek trucks" the tone is familiar southern rock honk, but the tunes include "mr. pc," "footprints," "so what," and "naima"...a rather heady assortment of standards for someone who was just 18 at the time. mofo can play too.

here's my beef. and it's a beef I've had with a whole assortment of guitar players who put the word "band" after their own name. this includes folks like robin trower, ritchie blackmore, danny gatton, roy buchanan, etc. etc. aside from the classic jeff beck group, with rod stewart on lead vocals, the singer in these guitar-featuring combos always SUCKS. I wonder why they even bother. actually, I don't wonder too very much, as the answer can be found in the high-rise facilities of the major label to which these acts are typically intertwined--the irrational quest for hit singles. pop hits. yes, pop hits from a ponytail-sporting, mannequin-motionless teen-phenom southern rock jazzbo, whose resume up to this point features a drop-dead rendition of "whipping post." sure, by all means, let's throw him out there to compete with mariah carey. hey, can the bass player sing?

I can only hope that the shifting landscape of music consumption--internet delivery, smaller-venue tours, niche marketing and a stronger independent label scene, will make this sort of lead singer prop unnecessary, particularly as these jam band, post-rock, progressive (and singer-less) bands make more headway on the touring (and recording) circuit. then I won't ever again have need to reach track four of an album, in fully blissed-out headspace tone grok, and be violently awoken by a barking cover band baritone ... singing ... words... sorry, but I don't attend poetry readings with hopes of hearing french horns, just as I don't seek out mr. derek trucks with hopes of hearing lyrics...

this reminds me of something I've always marveled at when faced with the marketing cousins of deadhead nation. e.g., I went to see medeski, martin and wood last week (arguably cousins on the marketing side, not the musical one). two sets. interesting--not the band so much, but the crowd. these kids came out to have a bit of a dance and a bit of a trip, be it chemical or otherwise. fine. good for them. the band complied toward this end, going uppity uppity up, then down-diddy down-diddy down, loud loud soft, soft soft loud, slow then fast, rinse-repeat, all to great acclaim. between sets, my compadres and I were chatting about the band's renegotiations with their label, Blue Note, and I thought of this seeming penchant for major label acceptance--not so much Blue Note, but certainly larger outfits who see the instant ability to move units with the white affluent hippy kids. it seems to be particularly pronounced with these supposedly "counter-culture" bands whose jerry-awareness is manifest, jamming out, meandering whichever way the wind blows, that wind being rather powerfully scented with patchouli. derek trucks, recently interviewed in Guitar Player Magazine, mentioned the pressures coming from his "major label." no band in the history of recorded music was more deeply and profitably involved with the major label combine than the grateful dead. I suppose that phish were doing their own thing to a degree, but they were certainly the exception. it just struck me thus as I watched the college kids dancing around, crammed into the side aisles, doing their level best to manufacture a haight-ashbury skirts-over-jeans gimme down to their hair shoulder length or longer we miss jerry we miss jerry driving that train jerry jerry jerry dancing bears dancing bears who's holding the kind? um. vibe? ... all within the cramped confines of the side-of-house aisles ... dancing, literally, under the exit signs....as the band launched into yet another kerfuffle of sound, these compliant, crowd-controlled kiddies couldn't possibly have had their fun made more codified, cookie-cuttered or corporate. as per other signposts of major label showbiz 'culture,' such as listening kiosks and the dave matthews band, a great deal more fun and stimulation can be had with a gameboy in a bus station, albeit with far less outlay of cash (and that, of course, simply would not do).

but putting that aside for the moment, I would be more immediately satisfied were we able to let those hastily-recruited "singers" get back to what they do best: staring at their own fingers. sans microphone.

...

AFTERNOON DELIGHT

...Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies and left the rest in strong shadow...

-- walt whitman "crossing brooklyn ferry"

...

PUT THE LIME IN THE COCONUT

...some eye candy for the weekend...

george will's disinfected mug for three whole days? methinks not!

...

SOMETHING STUPID (SLIGHT RETURN)

Next week I'll try and pick a regular day for this feature...but since I started this business on a Wednesday, there's just been gobs more stupidity flying over the balustrade in the last 48 hours, so I can't leave off this week in good conscience without including these items of note:

THIS WEEK IN STUPID
FEB 20-24

...don't worry, be happy...

Smile if (and Only if) You're Conservative
By George F. Will

George Will, whose opinions I usually disagree with, but whose sentences I frequently admire, came out with a doozy this week. Especially since he's been on quite a strong streak of fair-minded, measured criticisms of the Bush administration's policies, with especial eloquence on constitutional issues, it was a brushback to read this week's piece regarding the unhappiness of liberals.

Since I count myself amongst those who are left of center, I was interested to learn that my own inner discontent has mostly to do with my political leanings. If only I could embrace my inner Republican and stop caring about what's happening in the world, then I'd be happy! Golly! You mean all I have to do is become a rich, white cashmonger, and everything will be OK? Hey, thanks for the tip...

The piece goes on to argue that liberals are incapable of enjoying automobiles, a key component to modern happiness apparently. Also, we kill babies. And that's a bummer. Totally.

This sage counsel from a man with the complexion of a spanked bottom and a fashion sense straight out of The Great Gatsby. A constant source of amusement and jocularity, his comic style has often been favorably compared to Father Mulcahy of M.A.S.H., and his collection of barbershop quartet 78s is unrivaled in the Georgetown area. Thanks for caring, George. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to fuel my misery with more coverage of the burgeoning Iraqi Civil War. You can go back to waxing your Studebaker now...

...Paris is all ready to go out and help the poor...

Paris Hilton excited about playing Mother Teresa

Socialite And Hotel Heiress Paris Hilton Is Excited At The Thought Of Playing Mother Teresa In A Film On The Nobel Laureate, Says Well-known Malayalam Director T. Rajeevnath..

Rajeevnath, who is scouting for a suitable actress, said a friend of his
called up from the US to say that Hilton, in a late night television
interview, expressed her delight at being short-listed for the title role.
"What made me more happy was that she said she would try to convince me that she could handle the role. This certainly is good news because I am leaving
for the US early next month and my agents are working out a time slot for a
meeting with her," said Rajeevnath.

This is simply too bizarre to be true. Or is it? Could it have simply been an idle phone call that was relayed to her busy publicist, and as per the Britney Spears technique (constantly forcing one's name into the papers, despite having no album, movie, or anything else going on career-wise) given to the media simply to keep her name in the news? Don't get me wrong, I WANT to see Paris Hilton portray Mother Teresa. I mean, does anybody know what Mama T looked liked when she was younger? Maybe she was a hottie too! You don't know...

...Hi, I'm Sheryl Crow, and I was born with just one testicle...

The March Issue of Redbook

In the March issue of Redbook, Sheryl Crow says a whole lot of nice things about her fiancée, wristband titan and famous pedal peddler Lance Armstrong, even though she has now famously stopped touring with him. And when asked what makes Richie Sambora feel sexy, Richie Sambora says, "Seeing my wife, Heather Locklear, in a G-string." Looks like Richie is going to have to go back to that other thing that makes him feel sexy—new jersey teenagers with winger t-shirts and frosted hair. So what have we learned today? Is the editorial cycle of Redbook too slow to keep up with the life and times of the popular culture? Or is it we who are the foolish ones, seeking celebrity news from a magazine that prints such ghastly claptrap as “Our Biggest, Smallest, Curviest, Thinnest Fashion Story Ever.”

hey now! it's legendary star of stage and screen, mr. paul williams!

hey paul, what's the word?

... Slutskaya !!! ...

...

WITHIN YOUR REACH

"I'm different. I'm very individual. I don't contour to society in any way and that scares the hell out of everybody. I mean, you can call me a social outcast and I'll be damned proud to admit to those words. You gotta be able to stand out on your own to make a difference, right or wrong. Lately it's been wrong. But when I'm on, watch out. What comes around goes around."
--Bob Stinson

...bob stinson wasn't handsome....sometimes he'd get a little out of hand...

ten whole years have passed since the death of bob stinson on february 18, 1995...yesterday was the anniversary of his funeral ceremony. were I a better manager of calendar events, I might have delayed the debut of "this week in stupid" but in retrospect, I like to think that bob would have approved...in any case, I consider him to be one of the great unsung guitar heroes of the late 20th century, and to my ears, he is the almighty king of the lean-back-let-it-rip school of rock guitar. the founder of my all-time favorite band, the replacements, he was with the band from 1979 until his ouster in 1986. After he left, they were never the same.

In Shakespeare, the clown is always the one who carries the message, the gravitas, the heart and soul of the matter, and deep inside, the sadness. During an era full of hairspray, spandex and day-glo guitars, Bob Stinson was the class clown for those who still raised the flag for rock n roll, and did so by kicking righteous ass with a six-string electric guitar. I'm reprinting his eulogy below, courtesy of the nice folks over at Skyway:

...as delivered by Jim Walsh of the St. Paul Pioneer Press at his funeral at the McDivitt-Hauge funeral home on February 22, 1995:

"
Words fail me, as they have failed most of us over the past few days.
Yesterday, Carleen asked me if I had known Bob very well. I couldn't
rightfully say that I did in the traditional sense of the term. For
that reason, I was a little reticent when Anita asked me to deliver this
eulogy. But like everyone here, and another multitude who aren't, I
know Bob's spirit very well.

And it is a spirit, as I have discovered, that is next to impossible to
hold in a room, pin down on a piece of paper, or capture with a couple
of stories. At first, I didn't have my own words, so I stole someone
else's. This is from "On The Road" by Jack Kerouac:

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live,
mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time,
the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn
like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars,
and in the middle you see the blue center light pop, and everybody goes,
'Awwwww.'"

That was Bob. That is Bob. And you know what I mean, because we all
have our Bob stories. They're etched in our faces, planted in our hearts,
like seeds we never thought would ever bloom into anything much more than
memory. Of course, now we know better. This week, all the seeds
blossomed into vines, and tangled permanently around our hearts. This week, we learned a lot about Bob, a lot about ourselves, and just how much we
will miss this fabulous yellow roman candle.

Bob stories. Over the past few days, I've had the privilege of hearing
quite a few told and retold. It was like a wonderful game of dominoes
that elicited as many tears as laughs. Everybody recounting tales
about Bob's wit, his loving gentleness, his sense of humor, his appetite for
life.

And, as a matter of fact, there have been an inordinate amount of
stories about just his appetite.

Anita remembers when Bob was five years old. The family had moved from
Minnesota to San Diego, and Bob and Lonnie made a practice of taking
the 25 cents Anita would give them for the church basket, and buy cherry
pies.

Clearly, it was a pattern that would play itself out in adulthood, or
when Dog's Breath, and later the Replacements, started up, Anita remembers
feeding the entire band, and often a slew of their friends, after
they'd practiced at the houses on 36th and Bryant and 22nd and Dupont. Bob
would always eat his fair share. With the Replacements, his penchant for
eating fast food in the van earned him the nickname of Bob "To Go" Stinson.
As the rest of the guys would sit in the restaurant, Bob would go in, get
his food, come back and sit alone in the van until he was ready to eat.
Two hours would pass, sometimes, before he'd dig in. Peter always figured
it was because he liked to eat his food at room temperature.

One of my earliest food memories of Bob is 15 years ago, when the 'Mats
were making "Sorry Ma" over at Blackberry Way. Steve Fjelstad and
Peter were in the control room, and had just finished a take, and they were
getting ready to do another. Suddenly, Bob was nowhere to be found.
Then just as suddenly, he was back. Before anyone could say, "Where's
Bob?" he had snuck out of the studio, raced to Burger King which was a
good two blocks away and returned. He set up his Whopper, fries, and
Coke on his amp and was ready to go.

One of the last times I saw him, we sat at a bar and I bought Bob and
Mike Leonard some drinks. Bob caressed the menu, rolled his eyes with that
coy look he'd give you, but he never asked, because that wasn't his style.
He just looked at me out of the corner of those mischievous winking
eyes until I melted, caved in, and bought him a cheeseburger and fries.

Bob stories. It seems like we've been telling them for most of our
lives, and I have a very good feeling that it is a tradition that will not end
after today. Carleen remembers his love for skipping stones, fishing,
walking around the lakes and by the railroad tracks, and as a father
who loved Joey with the fierce, all-encompassing passion of a papa bear.
Tommy remembers his as a great brother, the two of them running around
the house as kids, flicking the sides of each other's heads with their
fingers until it felt like their ears were going to fall off.

Chris remembers the day Bob physically grabbed then 12-year-old Tommy,
who was running around with his friends, by the shoulders, and dragged him
into a Dog's Breath practice. Like any good big brother, he talked the
other guys into letting the kid play with the bigger kids. Paul
remembers Bob's special genius, his ability to rail against the stuffed shirts,
the status quo with aplomb. Paul calls it, "creative insanity."

My memory is of him walking, always walking down Hennepin, around the
lakes, down Lyndale, clutching that omnipresent brown bag of his. I
swear I saw him last night around midnight on 22nd and Hennepin I even did a
double take and I wouldn't be surprised if it was him. Last night.
That's when it hit me: the streets of this town are going to be a lot
quieter, and a hell of a lot less fun, without our Spanky roaming them.
Patrolling them.

Bob stories. The ones that probably stick in most of our heads are the
ones that have to do with his guitar. It all started on Christmas in
1969, when Anita bought Bob his first guitar, an acoustic one. He took
to it right away. By then, the family had moved from San Diego to West
Palm Beach, Florida, where Bob played softball, joined Cub Scouts, and
continued a love for the water that had started in California. Anita
remembers the time he took a summer job mowing lawns, and, after a
rainfall, tore up a customer's lawn on a riding mower. Clearly,
landscaping was not his forte.

Around the same time, he learned how to play guitar, and he made some
very good friends through it. When Bob's grandfather died in 1973, Anita
moved the family back to Minnesota, to the house on 36th and Bryant. Bob was 15 at the time, and the move was rough on him. He found solace, and
learned to express what he couldn't verbalize, through his music.

For the first couple years after moving to Minneapolis, Bob was unhappy
until he found friends, again with his music. First time Christ ever
saw him, Bob was bumming around the neighborhood on a girl's bike. He had
long hair, like his hero, Steve Howe [of Yes], and was sitting on the
curb smoking a cigarette, sneaking a listen to Christ playing guitar and
drums up in the bedroom. They eventually hooked up, formed Dog's Breath, and later the Replacements. The rest, as Anita says, "was destiny."

Throughout his life, the guitar was Bob's main mode of expression. And
even though he will be remembered most as founder of the Replacements,
the fact is, he got just as much joy playing in Static Taxi, as the collage
attests, the Bleeding Hearts, and the numerous other bands he played
with over the past few years. He brought the same no-holds-barred approach
to all of it. He did not play for fame or wealth. He played simply
because, as he once said, "I have a gas playing the guitar."

That was abundantly clear, just from watching or listening to him. He
became an inspiration to hundreds of thousands of guitarists out there,
but there never has been and never will be another guitar player like
this one.

I'm sorry to have to bring everybody down ever more, but I have to
report that I saw the Eagles last night. Bob was there, too during "Rocky
Mountain Way." But I'm here today to say that there are countless
quote musicians out there like the ilk of the Eagles rich, famous, practiced,
accomplished, clean, stylish who don't, in the entire membership or
body of work, have the artistry, abandon, instinct, ability, guts, humor, or
feel that Smokin' Bob Stinson had in his little finger.

There are a million Eagles out there, but there was only one Bob
Stinson.

More than any guitar player I have ever seen or heard, Bob had an
uncanny ability to actually fuse his personality with his guitar, and express
himself through it. His leads made you actually crawl inside him they
were funny, intense, sad, and joyful, all at once.

Chris talks about when the 'Mats would do "Rock Around the Clock" at
100 miles an hour, and about how much he loves it when the lead came, and
Bob would, unfailingly, nail t to the floor. There are countless other
such moments you could name: the other worldly magic "Go" and "Johnny's
Gonna Die," the manic force of "Dose Of Thunder," the goofy insanity of
"Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out," the barely controlled chaos of "Customer," and
on and on and on.

Along with his playing, of course, there was Bob's special panache he
brought to the stage. I remember that magnificent face, scrunched up
like he had a secret. I remember his falsetto on "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,
Yeah" and "Little G.T.O." I remember him ripped off a lead he'd be
particularly proud of, flicking his wrist like "waiter, my check," then
patting himself on the back, all in one motion.

And, of course, there was the wardrobe. The gorgeous, and always
tasteful, dresses. The Hefty garbage bags. The overalls. The Prince
"1999" t-shirt. The little jean jacket. The genie get-up that
prompted Chris to start calling him "Sim Salabim." One night at Duffy's, my big
brother and I rolled a garbage can up on stage. It came to rest
perfectly, next to Paul. Bob pulled it back by the drum riser and
climbed in it as the band spun into "Rattlesnake" or something.

Halfway through, the thing tipped over in slow motion, and Bob and the
entire contents beer bottles, food wrappers, everything- spilled out
all over the stage. I remember being worried about Bob for a second, but
he kept playing, never missed a beat, and popped up, indestructible as
ever. And when he did, we all saw that he'd lost his skirt and that he was
buck naked underneath.

To this day, I have never laughed harder or had a single moment so fill
me with the pure wonder and liberational power of rock n' roll. That power
was evident off stage as well. Paul talks about the last time he saw
Bob. They were both walking on the same block, at different ends of the
street, and they met in the middle. They hadn't seen each other in a while,
but they talked about guitars, music, and Tommy like no time at all had
passed.

Others have said the same thing. Bob was one of those guys you had an
ongoing conversation with. It always seemed like you picked up where
you left off with him, even though you weren't even quite sure if he
remembered you, or if you had mattered to him. But then he'd amaze you
with some remembrance, or a lost nugget that he wanted to tell you that
he'd filed away in that wonderful spin art mind of his.

Slim remember Bob as a teacher; the most uncompetitive, giving musician
he's ever met. Lori Barbero remembers the last time she saw Bob. He
was tugging on her shirt at the Uptown, urgently, peskily, until she
finally turned around and gave him a hug. He didn't want anything else. That
was all. That's all he wanted to give, and to get. A hug. In some of
their last encounters with Bob, Peter and Jim Boquist had similar
experiences: After a typically all-over-the-map Bob conversation, he surprised them both with a hasty, out-of-the-blue, "Love ya, man."

Yesterday, Anita got a letter from one of Bob's many fans. "I'm not
sure guys like Bob know what they mean to people who love their music," he
wrote. "For me, Bob's guitar playing always made me feel like I should
keep moving in life, no matter how much the odds seemed stacked against
me. I grew up with Bob as one of my heroes. He will always be one of
my heroes, somebody I'll tell my kids about someday."

I think that pretty much sums it up for all of us. Late Monday night
as I was gathering my thoughts to write this, my little brother called me up
on the phone, and he was sobbing. He articulated some things that I had
been feeling; that Bob's death was more than the passing of a tremendous
musician, a wonderful father, son, brother, friend, husband, grandson,
or uncle. He said that a little bit of all of us had died with him.

I suppose that's what people say whenever someone dies, but everyone
here knows exactly how true it is. The weird thing of it is, my little
brother had never even seen Bob play. Still, he felt it. He felt the
connection. He felt the spirit. He felt the loss.

And at the end of the day, that may have been Bob's greatest
contribution: through his guitar, through his magnanimous good nature, he made people feel like they were his closest friend. Better yet, he made us feel
like we were in on that secret little joke that hid behind his omnipresent
grin.

There are people in this room that I haven't seen, or seen together,
for a very long time. Leave it to Bob to get us all together for one more
swingin' party. HE would've thought the suits and ties and pomp and
circumstance were silly, he would have wondered where the beer was, and
he would have been embarrassed by all the attention and the tears. And
what his passing means I can't begin to explain, but as Robert Frost said:
"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It
goes on."

And Bob goes on. On the phone the other night, through his tears, my
little brother told me that his band played "Sixteen Blue" at the
Cabooze last week, and that when he went to Slim's gig Saturday night at the
400 Bar, Slim played one of his newer songs, "Big Star Big," and sang, "I
wanna be a big star like Bob Stinson." At this, my little brother and
I were both getting pretty choked up, so we started to say goodbye. As
we were about to hang up, I heard myself say something that I haven't said
to him in a very long time:

"Love ya, man."

In the past few days, you've probably said something like that to
someone you haven't said that to in a very long time. Rock n' roll doesn't
always lend itself to such blatant sentimentality, but this week we have all
been provided with a chance to get a little closer to each other, and a lot
of unspoken feelings have been spoken. WE have been reminded that people
are precious, that the bonds that we have made through this slippery thing
called rock music are not dismissible, or intangible, or imaginary, or
Other. They are real. For that, for all of that and so much more, we
have Bob to thank.

So thank you, Bob. Thank you for bringing us, all of us, together not
just for a day, today, but for yesterday, all the yesterdays, and
tomorrow. Thank you for touching us, for linking us, for helping us to
recognize all the phony bullshit, all the stuff that doesn't matter,
that the world throws our way. Thank you for cutting through the crap,
always. Thank you for making us feel like we were part of something, like it
was us against the world, and you were the third base coach, wildly waving
us all in. Jumping up and down. In a dress.

Most of all, thank you for allowing us to glimpse, ever so briefly,
your irrepressible, childlike spirit. Thank you for allowing us, forcing
us, to acknowledge the very natural connection between hopelessness and
happiness. Thank you for this glorious gift. Thank you, you fabulous
yellow roman candle, for lighting our fuse. May it never burn out.
"

...bob stinson was the heart of that band...

[photo captions lifted from the little-known classic, "bob stinson," written by another rock n roll hero, Bob Riedel]

...

SOMETHING STUPID

...program-related-activities...

Today, a new feature: "This Week in Stupid" ... a compendium, if you will, of headlines and/or stories that struck me as particularly, well, stupid. we'll try this out as a regular, or semi-regular thing. this space used to be much more about current events and politics and so forth, and I, for one, found that a bit tiresome. guitars are just lots more fun. however, it's hard not to be bombarded and have some sort of reaction to this stuff. and most of the time, regardless of the issue, it just seems that a lot of this junk wouldn't be so terrible were mankind not so unbelievably dumb. So, here goes....

THIS WEEK IN STUPID:
FEB 20 – 24

Furor Over Cartoons Pits Muslim Against Muslim

…9 months ago, a couple of tiny danish newspapers published some cartoons depicting mohammed in some unflattering contexts. Only recently was the existence of these cartoons broadcast to the great unwashed arab muslim world, causing many deadly protests and riots. BIG STUPID: The Netherlands has invested billions in trade and business ventures with the arab muslim world. Today they are losing billions. REALLY BIG STUPID: nothing in the Koran prohibits depictions of the prophet Mohammed, which is the putative reason for the riots. It prohibits depictions of Allah. There is another text, known colloquially as “poor richard’s madrassah,” which advises not to depict the prophet mohammed eating a head of cabbage. So, it turns out that the fundamentalist muslims don’t even have a good understanding of their own religion. Nope. Mostly just noisy.

Lowest Ratings Ever for Winter Olympic Games

...you know, I think my parents once had a station wagon called a "torino"...STUPID: firing a rifle while on snow skis. or is that how it's done in Wyoming?

Blast Destroys Golden Dome of Sacred Shiite Shrine in Iraq

…”insurgents” blew up a sacred muslim shrine. Could these insurgents be muslim? Does that pickle your noodle or what? This shrine served as both a tomb for two revered tribal leaders as well as a shiny gold ornament. Many people are upset about this, most of them Shiites, who are not so friendly with the Sunnis, or was it the Baathists? STUPID: anybody who still thinks this has anything to do with “god” or “allah.” Pop question: whose side are we going to be on in the civil war? (I forgot)

Bush Played No Role in Approval of Port Deal, White House Says

…the bush administration agreed to award the contract for our port security stewardship to a company from dubai, united arab emirates. Since I live very closeby the Newark and New York ports, and bomb-sniffing distance from Baltimore, thanks again guys. STUPID: since sleeper cells get most of their effectiveness and surprise from waiting years to execute their plans, aren’t “standard” employee screening procedures pretty useless in this context? And since I’m assuming that a lot of their employees fit the profile of sleeper cell membership, why is this such a good idea? BIG STUPID: even with fellow republicans protesting, bush still wants to move forward with it, and has threatened to use his –first ever—veto to do so. REALLY BIG STUPID: the administration now claims that bush had no involvement nor knowledge of this deal up until the point at which it became a media story. Q: How does that jibe with the whole obsessing over america’s security line he’s been peddling for the last five years or so? A: Quail hunting.

Cheney

...the vice president shot a man in the face. we are expected to consider this a triviality. BIG FAT STUPID: in addition to inflicting violence on quail and nearby humans, sneaky dick is also a big supporter of US-sanctioned torture. surprised?

Lady MacCheney squares off with Gregory and Dowd

...sporting a brouche that would double very nicely as a ninja death star, babbling on endlessly about parallel universes and jihads and presumptions of accident and her deep comprehension of what the public wants, batshit schoolmarm Mary "kung fu grip" Matalin set a new highmark in creative partisan scrambling this week on “meet the press”. The fact that she doesn’t work for Cheney any longer didn’t seem to matter, nor the fact that she isn’t a journalist (which the other three panelists were) as she spun some amazing flights of fancy right there on the spot. STUPID: being married to James Carville and managing to sell this mr/mrs smith act, as if either of them actually mean anything they have to say. BIG STUPID: that brouche. I mean, I'm still learning the ropes from "project runway," but that sucker was big, garish, and must've set off the NBC security grid like a xmas tree… REALLY BIG STUPID: because of the Olympics, which nobody is watching to begin with, the show broadcast at 6am. so regardless of the dramaturgical vagaries of the "showdown," no one was even awake to watch the damn thing...

Pope Names Two Americans as Cardinals

…all popes do it. They eventually turn a bunch of bishops into cardinals so as to confirm a loyal constituency at the Vatican. Pretty standard stuff. STUPID: the archbishop from Boston who was supposedly put there to “clean up” the mess left by “Cardinal” Law, and proceeded to do nothing of the sort, is getting his red cap (could "cleaning up the mess" simply mean calming down enough folks so that the collection moneys keep coming in? yes! give this man a promotion!). I can only hope that there are some good cartoonists working for the Globe…

Vote Due on South Dakota Bill Banning Nearly All Abortions

...Alito hasn’t even received his office stationery yet, and the Roe V. Wade battle is already in motion. Look at it this way: when the precedent is overturned, those states with abortion rights will be safe from further action by the Supreme Court. All you red staters can get started building your dickensian workhouses. OR, if by some miracle Roe V Wade is upheld, then the assumption by right-to-lifers, that the solution rests with right-wing judges, will be laid bare as fallacy, and "choice" will become even more entrenched in our society. Either way, it’s win-win. STUPID: when asked where he stood on roe versus wade, George Bush remarked that frankly, he didn’t care how people got themselves out of New Orleans…

...

JEFF'S BOOGIE

... this ...

+

... this ...

+

... a little bit of this ...

into one of these:

=

BALLS DELUXE...

my pal Jeff is finally doing some proper recordings of his brilliant songs, and asked me to contribute...so, on Sunday I shook off the bedspins, loaded up on robitussin, and headed over to this place.

the above flow chart constituted my simple-but-effective recording rig for the live-in-studio recordings. strat into a blues junior, with the germanium boost in the middle, and self-tweaking of the guitar's volume pot, ranging from 7 (thin, clangy, jangly, bright) to 10 (girth, crunch, nastiness) got most of the job done. for the occasional lead part, I kicked in the analogman blues driver, which provided plenty of gain and sustain.

I might add that for Jeff's rhythm guitar tracks we sent his signal into a POD Pro, using a fender deluxe/blackface model, tweaked to get the most out of his les paul studio bridge pickup--picked lightly it was clean, but hit harder it distorted just the right amount...how do those line6 cats get it to work like that? so cool...and a fine amalgam of old school tube amp with mic(s) and present-day digital studio DI recording approaches.

a very pleasant and productive afternoon...

...

SICK AGAIN

... nurse! nurse! ...

laid up with an ugly bug as of last thursday, which I'm just getting over now...

still, there is some news to report...will post later in the day once I've caught up on my emails and phonemails...

...

SPRING IS HERE

...in 1531 Ponce De Leon came to Florida to find the fountain of youth...he was not the last to do so...

Fuck the Olympics. To hell with the World Baseball Classic. This week, Pitchers and Catchers report to camp...

...

hey now! it's legendary star of stage and screen, mr. paul williams!

hey paul, what's the word?

... play ball !!! ...

...

JANIE'S GOT A GUN

...rhymes with cheney...

I don't know a lot about hunting, except for what all my growin' up country hunting friends used to tell me after their trips up north to kill deer, or that movie with robert deniro where christopher walken played russian roulette and got the oscar, but I do know this: just as golf is mainly an activity designed to get away from the womenfolk -- nobody really gives a shit about rolling little balls into little holes -- hunting is an excuse to get out to the woods and DRINK. Warm, straight from the bottle, yummy in my tummy booze...

Of course there are different sorts of motivations, beyond the obvious getting-drunk-with-guns part, that drive these hunting enthusiasts, chief among them (and I think you know who you are, mr. one heartbeat away) is the love of the pure pleasure of killing. It's pretty simple what happened--a quail was flushed and cheney, in his zeal to kill it, turned his gun carelessly (and drunkenly?) and--BLAMMO--his 78-year old lawyer buddy got blasted.

Now how does a lifelong veteran of this "sport," which is ostensibly 100% preoccupied with the art of killing little critters while not killing us bigger critters, wind up killing his very own bosom pal? You're saying it's just a big whoops? Nuh-uh...there must be a better explanation forthcoming before I remove myself from the viewpoint that our double-secret veep creep wasn't soused on the sour mash...a proclivity toward imbibing might help explain all those heart attacks, for one thing--everybody worried about the boy king falling off the wagon while his cruel uncle dick is over at foggy bottom going glug glug glug...& all these pundits wringing their hands over the time it took for the story to reach the press, and his defenders saying how bad he feels--jesus christ he SHOT SOMEBODY IN THE FACE. if I shot somebody in the face, I can guarantee you that I wouldn't be sitting here at this computer. I'd be in the pokey...

you dig? no? got another angle? well I'm going to try an experiment--starting today I'm turning on the "comments" section. you will be able to post comments--anonymously if you'd like--to this site and chime in about this or that...I reserve the right to pull the plug at any time, should there be lack of interest, or spammers, or anything else that isn't cool and the gang....I won't edit comments, but if anything is posted with a commercial interest, I'll delete it and bar the perp from the site...we'll see how it goes...

...JR Ewing was reportedly at an undisclosed location at the time of the shooting...

...

VALENTINE

...to all young lovers, wherever you are...

Well you wish upon a star
That turns into a plane
And I guess that's right on par
Who's left to blame?

If you were a pill
I'd take a handful at my will
And I'd knock you back with something sweet and strong
Plenty of times you wake up
In February make-up
Like a fool and the morning star you're gone

Tonight makes love to all your kind
Tomorrow's pickin' Valentines

Hey you pop up in this old place
So sick and so refined
Are you strung out on some face?
Well I know it ain't mine

If you were a pill
I'd take a handful at my will,
And I'd knock you back with something sweet and strong
Trouble keeping your head up
When you're hungry and you're fed up,
Like a moon and a northern star you're gone

Tonight makes love to all your kind
Tomorrow's pickin' Valentines

If you were a pill
I'd take a handful at my will,
And I'd knock you back with something sweet as wine
Yesterday was theirs to say, this is their world and their time
Honey, tonight belongs to you, tomorrow's mine

Tonight makes love to all your kind
Tomorrow's pickin' Valentines

--Paul Westerberg

...and to all older lovers, wherever you are: please stop...

...

ARMY FIGHT SONG

...war is peace...

"I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill between the nations, and that if only the common peoples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket, they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield. Even if one didn't know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principles.

Nearly all the sports practised nowadays are competitive. You play to win, and the game has little meaning unless you do your utmost to win. On the village green, where you pick up sides and no feeling of local patriotism is involved. it is possible to play simply for the fun and exercise: but as soon as the question of prestige arises, as soon as you feel that you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose, the most savage combative instincts are aroused. Anyone who has played even in a school football match knows this. At the international level sport is frankly mimic warfare. But the significant thing is not the behaviour of the players but the attitude of the spectators: and, behind the spectators, of the nations who work themselves into furies over these absurd contests, and seriously believe — at any rate for short periods — that running, jumping and kicking a ball are tests of national virtue."

--George Orwell

...

THERE'S A PLACE

...it snowed...

...we had extra...

RED LIGHT INDICATES THE DOORS ARE SECURE

an imaginary interview with the arctic monkeys...
as interpreted by william s. burroughs:

Q: When did you have aspirations about being in a band?
A: Do not try to shortchange the Muse. It cannot be done. You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.

Q: Have there been any lineup changes so far?
A: They tend to be suspicious, bristly, paranoid-type people with huge egos they push around like some elephantiasis victim with his distended testicles in a wheelbarrow terrified no doubt that some skulking ingrate of a clone student will sneak into his very brain and steal his genius work.

Q: What do you think about so many publications and people calling your band the next big thing? How do you feel about that?
A: America is not a young land: it is old and dirty and evil before the settlers, before the Indians. The evil is there waiting.

Q: What role do you think the Internet had in where your band is today?
A: Black magic operates most effectively in preconscious, marginal areas. Casual curses are the most effective.

Q: Another band that seems to often come up in conversations about the Internet and music is the Brooklyn band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Are you familiar with them?
A: A functioning police state needs no police.

Q: What's the story behind the video for "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor"?
A: A homosexual can be conditioned to react sexually to a woman, or to an old boot for that matter. In fact, both homo - and heterosexual experimental subjects have been conditioned to react sexually to an old boot, and you can save a lot of money that way.

Q: I like the video, but it seemed weird that you guys were going nuts without an audience.
A: After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.

Q: What has been the most difficult problem the band has encountered up until now? Have you had any major issues?
A: Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.

Q: Is that your least favorite part of the whole press thing? Photos? Interviews?
A: Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.

Q: Looking back, was there a specific turning point for the band?
A: Which came first the intestine or the tapeworm?

Q: What are your upcoming plans?
A: Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it. I call it "creative observation." Creative viewing.

Q: Are you worried about getting burned out?
A: Anything that can be done chemically can be done by other means.

Q: You've been to the U.S. before, right?
A: America is not so much a nightmare as a non-dream. The American non-dream is precisely a move to wipe the dream out of existence. The dream is a spontaneous happening and therefore dangerous to a control system set up by the non-dreamers.

Q: For the next questions, I'm going to say the title of your songs, and you tell me the first word that comes to mind. The first one is "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor."
A: I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it.

Q: "Fake Tales Of San Francisco."
A: Perhaps all pleasure is only relief.

Q: "Dancing Shoes."
A: There couldn't be a society of people who didn't dream. They'd be dead in two weeks.

Q: Most band names are a bit awkward to chant at shows, but have people been chanting "Arctic Monkeys" at shows?
A: Most of the trouble in this world has been caused by folks who can't mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus has.

Q: The guy who was putting the songs on the Internet — did you know him before?
A: Our national drug is alcohol. We tend to regard the use any other drug with special horror.

Q: What's with bands in the U.K. dissing each other in the press? It's like hip-hop in the U.S.
A: A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on.

Q: That sounds right, but I'm not sure.
A: Language is a virus from outer space.

...dude, the arctic monkeys totally kick ass...

...

DRIVE MY CAR

...who knew? whenever I used to think about Britney, it was actually she who was the one sitting in my lap...but we weren't driving, neither of us were wearing diapers, and we weren't sitting in the front seat...

...who knew?... that the working criteria for informing the nation of "real" al-qaeda threats isn't "really" national security, but rather political security...

..who knew? boob jobs really are worth it!...

...I know absolutely nothing about this case except for what little was reported today, so let me just jump in here with my thoughts: HE IS GUILTY...

...this is Linda Fargo, the fashion director for Bergdorf Goodman, wearing chains on her boots. Ladies & Gentlemen: Punk is Dead...

hey now! it's legendary star of stage and screen, mr. paul williams!

hey paul, what's the word?

...dude, the arctic monkeys totally kick ass...

...

DEAR GOD

Dear god,
Hope you got the letter,
And I pray you can make it better down here.
I don’t mean a big reduction in the price of beer,
But all the people that you made in your image,
See them starving on their feet,
’cause they don’t get enough to eat

From god,
I can’t believe in you.

Dear god,
Sorry to disturb you,
But I feel that I should be heard loud and clear.
We all need a big reduction in amount of tears,
And all the people that you made in your image,
See them fighting in the street,
’cause they can’t make opinions meet,
About god,
I can’t believe in you.

Did you make disease, and the diamond blue?
Did you make mankind after we made you?
And the devil too!

Dear god,
Don’t know if you noticed,
But your name is on a lot of quotes in this book.
Us crazy humans wrote it, you should take a look,
And all the people that you made in your image,
Still believing that junk is true.
Well I know it ain’t and so do you,
Dear god,
I can’t believe in,
I don’t believe in,

I won’t believe in heaven and hell.
No saints, no sinners,
No devil as well.
No pearly gates, no thorny crown.
You’re always letting us humans down.
The wars you bring, the babes you drown.
Those lost at sea and never found,
And it’s the same the whole world ’round.
The hurt I see helps to compound,
That the father, son and holy ghost,
Is just somebody’s unholy hoax,
And if you’re up there you’ll perceive,
That my heart’s here upon my sleeve.
If there’s one thing I don’t believe in...

It’s you,
Dear god.

...

"Dear God" as performed by XTC, was written by Andy Partridge

FAKE TALES OF SAN FRANCISCO

...here's one of those Danish cartoons that's causing all the fuss over in Europe...

"The innate human revulsion against desecration is much older than any monotheism: Its most powerful expression is in the Antigone of Sophocles. It belongs to civilization. I am not asking for the right to slaughter a pig in a synagogue or mosque or to relieve myself on a "holy" book. But I will not be told I can't eat pork, and I will not respect those who burn books on a regular basis. I, too, have strong convictions and beliefs and value the Enlightenment above any priesthood or any sacred fetish-object. It is revolting to me to breathe the same air as wafts from the exhalations of the madrasahs, or the reeking fumes of the suicide-murderers, or the sermons of Billy Graham and Joseph Ratzinger. But these same principles of mine also prevent me from wreaking random violence on the nearest church, or kidnapping a Muslim at random and holding him hostage, or violating diplomatic immunity by attacking the embassy or the envoys of even the most despotic Islamic state, or making a moronic spectacle of myself threatening blood and fire to faraway individuals who may have hurt my feelings. The babyish rumor-fueled tantrums that erupt all the time, especially in the Islamic world, show yet again that faith belongs to the spoiled and selfish childhood of our species."

--Christopher Hitchens, writing on the Danish cartoons hullabaloo, in today's Slate.

Amen.

...

TOO ROLLING STONED

...all the way to the bank...

every December 25, a goodly number of New Yorkers, particularly those of the Judaic ethnology, emerge from their apartments and head out to enjoy New York City, which they have all to themselves because the rest of us are home opening presents and so forth...this is perhaps a slight exaggeration, as some Jewish folks celebrate Christmas too, and of course they have the Buddhists, Muslims and atheists to stand on line with as well, but based on conversations I've had over the years with my friends in the tribe, this has always sounded like quite an excellent way to spend the day.

This year, I'm hoping to start a new tradition: make super sunday truly Super. The way I figure it--EVERYBODY will be home, glued to the set. Where to begin? Movie? Restaurant? Shopping? The mind boggles...

Still, I am a Stones fan, and I'll bet their three-song set will be better than the usual halftime drivel. And of course, those commercials...but since the powers that be seem particularly censorious this year, what will I be missing? Some extra-large horses hauling beer? Polar bears? Frogs? Cloying video pieces involving soldiers? Olympic athletes whoring themselves? No way. Nuh-uh...not when the entire outside world is Christmas all over...

...

BULLET IN A BIBLE

It is one of the maladies of our age to profess a frenzied allegiance to truth in unimportant matters, to refuse consistently to face her where graver issues are at stake.
-Janos Arany, poet (1817-1882)

If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.
-Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (1920-1992)

...

WHEN SUNNY GETS BLUE

...crystal clean, no caffeine...

As I indicated last week, I’m a big fan of the germanium-based treble booster/dallas rangemaster circuit, and have been totally digging the “teeth” it adds to my tone. But by happy coincidence, the same day the booster arrived at my door, so too did the analogman blues driver (Boss BD-2/Super mod). And I would be remiss were I not to chime in with a similar degree of enthusiasm for this remarkable re-engineering and transformation of a rather mundane mass market guitar accessory into a dynamic, tuneful, and deliciously creamy, hi-fi, tone immaculater...

Some background: Stevie Ray Vaughan forever put Ibanez tube screamers (TS808) on the map, using one or two at a time to get his sound. And since we humans like the idea of glomming onto people of greatness via items from their particular toolkits (examples: little leaguers and old-timers wearing Derek Jeter jerseys; suburban wastelanders buying the same golf clubs that Tiger Woods uses; corpulent bridge & tunnelers encasing their lardaceous trunks in Rangers jerseys; misguided women forking over the ducats for the Manolos they saw on ‘Sex & the City’, etc.), guitarists the world over began demanding, en masse, the same pedal SRV was using. Never mind that he had a rather spectacular array of vintage Fender tube combos blasting away behind him, and in Cesar Diaz, a world-class guitar tech who went on to some renown as an inventor, manufacturer, and entrepreneur, tending to his signal path (Diaz Musical Products).

But still, we wanted those tube screamers so we could sound, sort of, like Stevie Ray. Just one problem—Ibanez changed the circuit! They put out a new tube screamer model (TS9), which didn’t sound the same, and used different parts. So, in the advent of this discommodious state of affairs, reissues were issued, and the arguing over what/which/who was the real deal commenced (helped along by the ever-argumentative internet). Eventually, a new market for modified pedals began to spring up: you buy a TS9 off the shelf, and send it off to one of these clever fellows would change it back to TS808 specs, putting back the correct capacitors and so forth, just as Cesar Diaz used to tend to the internal machinations of SRV’s fuzz faces and TS808s…

While they were at it, some of these doctors of the tube screamer began to make available other modifications of existing models. The pedal I recently purchased is the upgraded “super” mod of the old warhorse, the Boss Blues Driver (BD-2).

Straight out of the box from your local gear monger, the BD-2 is a perfectly OK pedal. It makes your signal louder, it gives you some added sustain, and it will supply a smidgen of “presence” (whatever that is) to your tone. The biggest complaint about the pedal is the tinny, “icepick” tone that is produced when pushing the tone button anywhere past 12:00. I can confirm this—with any instrument I tried, this icepick business was manifest, and quite irritating to listen to. So that left one with a much more limited array of options, and the best one could hope for would be a midrange-heavy tone that wasn’t much fun with chords and was basically a crappy fender-combo-without-the-balls overdrive sound with the gain turned up. And since tube screamers get their characteristic sound by pumping up the midrange, the stock BD-2, set to avoid the icepick tone, was, in practice, a pale cousin to the tube screamer, despite its circuit possessing a much more dynamic EQ spectrum.

But I didn’t want a tube screamer. If I wanted my Stevie Ray Vaughan, I’d have bought some boots and a hat. I wanted something else. So I found a used BD-2, and sent it off to analogman.

Preamble, enough. Now, tone:

After it arrived back a week later, I was surprised to find that the icepick was still there. What what? Yeah, it's there--after all, the circuit isn't totally replaced, just improved, but to reach icepick territory you really have to goose the tone knob all the way up and turn up the volume and gain as well, and use a single-coil instrument. Even still, I was nowhere near Roy Buchanan territory. And naturally I backed it way down—with the tone at about 12:00, it’s as breathy and full-throated as Lauren Bacall asking for a light in a Mediterranean casino…the happy reality is that both ends of the frequency spectrum are well-represented—the ice pick way up high, and on the other end, a gorgeously round bottom…

The best descriptive phrase I’ve found for it comes from one of analogman’s competitors' web sites: full range sound. No midrange hump, no specialty effect, like a “metal” pedal, but more of a coaxing forth of your original tone into a more muscular holler…in fact, the BD-2/Super behaves very much like a good preamp, providing the ability to shape your tone in degrees of dirt/grit/overdrive, eq, and volume. Its tonal flexibility makes it versatile enough to use with virtually any sort of amplifier. And while the gain is there, and quite handy for chunky rhythm playing or raunchy blues stuff, I tend to get my grit and vibe from the amps’ preamp tubes these days, so I keep the gain at about 9-10:00, and use the volume/tone to push the signal hard. You might even call it a “clean boost,” but that would be a misnomer—there’s plenty of clipped signal happening, but only at a specific frequency, hence the lack of 'mud.' I hadn’t made the connection originally, but the “super” moniker probably isn’t coincidental—the singing, sustaining tone is very much reminiscent of a wide-open Fender Super Reverb…in fact, I am reminded of a gig I saw last year with Jimmy Herring playing Dickie Betts-inspired lead guitar, with a PRS into a H&K Tubeman into a blackface Super. Clean, but singing, and crunchy when you bear down.

So here is today’s piece of guitar gear wisdom, gleaned from several years of auditioning high-end guitar pedals: forget about the pedal, in and of itself. Just like that wall of vibroverbs that broadcast Stevie Ray’s strat/tubescreamer tone, if the pedal you’re using causes you to experience a renewed love of your amp, then that’s the one to use. Sure, I’ve got some pretty good stuff down in the tank (blackstone, fulltone, prescription, sansamp, etc., all collecting dust), but it wasn’t until I ganged up the rangemaster circuit with the BD-2, that I realized with astonishment the exquisite sound that my amplifiers were producing! So that’s it. Just like that. I’ve got my sound.

“Pistol Slapper Blues”

--Blind Boy Fuller

…